Halcyon Days
by Tiquismiquis
Summary: Loosely-linked stories about Emmeryn, Chrom, Lissa, and Frederick as they grow up together. [Chapter Seven: "You mustn't," Emmeryn said in a low voice, "treat me specially because I am the Exalt. Father received all sorts of special treatment, and I wonder if that helped to drive him mad."]
1. Loyalty

_Author's Note: OKAY. Here's this story I've been rambling about for a while but haven't been working on seriously or actually posting. Time to get down to business: an absurdly long pre-game fic about Emmeryn, Frederick, Chrom, and Lissa as they grow up. Chapters will vary pretty severely in length. While Chrom and Lissa will definitely have their voices, the narration will be a little heavier on Emmeryn and Frederick's end, because they're older and able to comprehend more about the world and what's happening around them._

_I do mess around with ages and timelines a little, since the game seems to have a lot of weird contradictions or things that were left completely un-fleshed out. AKA I'm making most of this up. If you see something particularly egregious, let me know and I'll try to reconcile it in later chapters. Otherwise, I'm just rolling with what makes sense to me XD._

* * *

**Chapter One: Loyalty**

Emmeryn might have been an angel, the first time he met her.

The vast throne room made Frederick blink owlishly; bright white morning light burst through the large glass panes lining both stone walls. A red carpet marked his path to the throne and dais and the girl standing there, shining. Sunlight made golden rings of her thick yellow curls. His knees creaked in protest when he knelt before her, his white tunic catching the light like her skin was, after the long night already spent kneeling.

He hadn't imagined being knighted like this.

He'd imagined it would be the Exalt himself bringing down the sword, tall and imposing and dark-haired. But the Exalt was away now, fighting in Plegia. A war he had started, Frederick learned when he came to the capital to be squired. The thought made his stomach turn. Father always spoke about the Exalt like he was holy; infallible. And then the reports came of entire villages razed to the ground, the smoking corpses of women and children, rumors of atrocities done to Plegian prisoners. He supposed he was pleased that the Exalt's daughter would instead do the deed, even if she was a slip of a girl and just past thirteen, and even if she used a decorative rapier that made her wrist tremble with its weight, rather than the legendary Falchion, which was out tasting innocent blood.

He'd imagined his father would be present. Proud, for once. Smiling, for once. Frederick would finally have earned his love by being knighted at fifteen, one of the youngest in a decade. No one would ever call him worthless again; he would be the most helpful and capable creature alive.

But Father wasn't here to see. He was out with the Exalt, warring, wearing his sword and his frown, blinded by his loyalty. Killing whomever his lord told him to kill without question.

Would he grow blind himself, Frederick wondered. If the Exalt called him too, would he not go? Was loyalty not the most important thing? His thoughts were broken:

"I dub thee Sir Frederick, knight of Ylisse."

Emmeryn tapped him on each shoulder with her blade so gently that he barely felt it. Then she gave her sword to one of the knights at her side, lifted him up by the shoulders, and kissed his face. When she pulled away he saw circles under her eyes, very dark against her pale skin.

"My lady," he said, feeling no different, "you look exhausted."

"What a thing to say. Most knights, I am told, simply say 'thank you' or swear to serve Ylisse anew."

"Yes, of course, but my foremost duty is now to your health and safety, and I intend to take it seriously. Shall I escort you back to your rooms? Are you ill? Is there anything I can do?"

"Do well," she said with a soft smile. "Forgive me, I did not mean to appear so tired. But you are the first person I have ever knighted, and before bed last night, I couldn't help but think of you at your vigil—being in that drafty old chapel all night, with your knees aching, alone and in the dark. So I stayed up all night too, and prayed for you."

All night?

For him?

He was so touched that words failed him. She giggled at his expression, and the young Captain Phila appeared at her side.

"Come, Your Grace," she said. "You have other duties to attend to, this morning."

"Yes, Phila. Goodbye, Sir Frederick."

She nearly floated out of the room in her modest green skirts, and he stared after her, heedless of the knights who came to clap him on the back.

This, then, was blind, unwavering loyalty; the most important thing. This was someone he could follow to the ends of the earth. This was someone he would never fail, no matter what a failure he was by nature.

He swore it.

* * *

_Author's Note: P.S. The point of view will change each chapter. Next time it's Chrom's._


	2. Ascension

_Author's Note: According to the wiki, Emm was almost 10 when she became the Exalt, but I call BS on that. No 9-10 year old is going to end a war and get rocks thrown at her. So we're making her 15. Chrom can be almost 10._

_Also, how the exalted brands work is very iffy. I've been told it surfaces over childhood, supposedly, and Lissa's for some reason never did. Since that makes so little sense to me, I'm just making it like a birthmark that she wasn't born with._

* * *

**Chapter Two: Ascension**

Chrom heard the courtiers arguing about which would be more proper: to keep the throne room curtained in black velvet, or to celebrate Emmeryn's ascension properly and let the light in once more.

In the end, the earth had compromised for them. All the mourning black was taken down, but the day was consumed by a rainstorm so heavy that the room was gloomy and heavily shadowed, as if evening had already fallen.

A huge crowd gathered for the coronation: great lords and ladies, hundreds of knights, and whatever commoners had managed to wedge themselves through the door. Coronations, Chrom had been told, always started in the throne room and proceeded to the town square so that the new Exalt could address the people. Emmeryn's advisors had begged her not to go because the rain was coming down so hard, but she'd insisted. He sure hoped the black sable she wore would keep her dry enough.

He wouldn't mind a little rain, himself. He liked to be wet and jump in puddles. Maybe it would cheer Lissa up, too.

He ignored Emmeryn on the dais, repeating old boring oaths to some bishop holding Father's crown on a pillow, and hugged Lissa a little closer to his side. She was shaking hard.

"No tears," he reminded her in a whisper. "Not in front of all these people."

"But…"

He pinched her arm to shut her up but that only sent her weeping after all. The crown behind them murmured sympathetically: Poor girl, only five. Poor boy, only nine. Poor Exalt Emmeryn, only fifteen .

Fifteen seemed so old to Chrom. Emmeryn could do it. If anyone could do anything, it was her.

Lissa was mumbling to herself as she wet his new jacket: "Now we're all alone."

"Don't be silly. We have each other."

"I miss Father."

I do too , he tried to say, but the words got stuck in his throat, where they burned like he'd swallowed water the wrong way. When he was Lissa's age, he loved Father more than anything. They were exactly alike: strong brands, hair like Marth, a fascination with swords. Father always ruffled his hair and let him have his way, even when Mother frowned. Chrom tried his best to be good because he loved Mother too. But then Lissa came around, and Mother died to give her life, as Emmeryn said. Chrom was not pleased with the trade. He'd sobbed in Emm's arms for what felt like days. But when he first saw his new baby sister, his tears dried.

You're going to be a good brother and take care of her, aren't you, Chrom? Emmeryn asked, and he nodded until he got dizzy. He'd be the best brother in the world to her. That's what Mother would have wanted. That's what Lissa deserved, who would have no memory of her.

And then Father made it home for the birth, delayed by the weather, too late for everything. When he learned Lissa didn't have a mark like him and Emm, he demanded Mother.

"She passed, Your Grace," the midwife said, hands shaking.

"The gods are merciful," said Father. "I should have liked to hang her, instead."

Emmeryn covered Chrom's ears, but it was too late. When Father left for the fray again, a few days later, Chrom winced when his hair was ruffled. He never saw him again.

Why was a stupid mark worth wanting to kill his mother? Or ignoring Lissa, who cried against him, missing a man she'd barely met because she didn't understand more than that she was orphaned? He held her a little tighter and whispered, "Look," as the shiny crown was placed on Emmeryn's head. That helped to distract her.

"I would like to make my first blessing here," Emmeryn said. Her voice always had the strangest way of filling up a room, even though she spoke quietly. "I am not the only one who has lost someone, in this last battle. I know a great many of us were affected. If you, too, are grieving now, please step forward."

A great number of the crowd edged their way to the front. Chrom was a little stunned by it all. Who had lost fathers, like him? Who had lost mothers? Brothers, sisters, lovers, best friends? More than one?

Lissa began to cry again as Emm raised her hands elegantly and invoked the gods to ease their grief. A tall knight who had come forward crouched by them and handed her an impeccably white handkerchief. She wiped her face off and stared at him as if wondering where he'd come from.

"Thanks," she squeaked.

"No need, milady. A true knight is always prepared."

She handed the snot-covered cloth back before Chrom could tell her how gross that was, but the knight pocketed it as if nothing was amiss and stepped back into the crowd while Emmeryn finished her blessing. Then she stepped off the dais and looked at the two of them.

"Ready to go to the square?" she asked. "I ask you not to jump in too many puddles, but I'll turn a blind eye to one or two."

Chrom lost his own grip then, bursting into tears as Lissa had only a moment ago. Whatever hatred Father harboured, no one would ruffle his hair again and call him their boy. No one would hug like Mother did. And now even Emm was practically gone, changed: the shape of her face looked different with her hair done so formally, and the crown on her head was so strange, and she never wore black, and there was such tiredness chiseled into her face. This wasn't the sister he knew. Nothing would ever be the same.

"Now," she said calmly. "Don't cry. Everything will be all right."

But she sounded the same. The love he felt radiating from her was the same. The words she used to quiet him were the same. He took a deep breath, and he and Lissa each took one of her hands, and she shepherded them all out into the rain.

* * *

_Author's Note: Next chapter will have everybody's point of view (and so it'll be rather long)._


	3. Pillars

**Chapter Three: Pillars**

Early on, Emmeryn decided to make weekly visits to the town square, so that she could speak to the people about the progress of the war.

It was easy to end it, all things considered. With her father dead and the Plegian throne in turmoil, there was no one left in power to keep warmongering. No one but her. So she sent a white flag with a messenger and ordered the first wave of troops on the vanguard home.

She was sure the people would be pleased, especially after the casualties of the last battle, but she was still nervous when she reached the square and saw the crowd. She never had been one for speaking much, and now she had to make speeches very often. Despite the season, the air was as still and thick as that of a summer day. They watched her carefully. She stepped away from Phila, the six pegasus knights accompanying her, and the gaggle of bishops.

"I bring you good news," she began to the people over their eerie silence. "Plegia and I have reached an agreem—"

Something struck her shoulder hard and dropped to the ground, narrowly missing her foot. A rock. She exhaled slowly. _Father, look what your tyranny has left for me._

"An agreement," she continued, a little louder. "As of this morning, the war—"

White light and pain lanced through her eyes and nose; a second rock had hit her temple. While she fought to keep her balance and finish her sentence, another cracked against her jaw. She might have cried out, had her mouth not filled with blood. She heard Phila draw steel.

"Who did this!"

"Stop!" Emmeryn managed, one hand held out to her guard and the other covering her throbbing lips. The crowd murmured and she saw many reach for their belts as her vision cleared. "Stand down."

"Someone hurt you."

"They're still all my people. Retaliating is what Father would have done. I won't allow it."

Because truthfully, she understood. The Ylisseans were frightened. She carried the same Exalted blood and bore the same brand; it was easy to see how she might lead them to the same destructive fate. A child's role model was their father.

But Emmeryn was no child any longer. She rolled back her shoulders and raised her head, willing to take another stone. If that was what it took to reassure them that she would not cut them down, so be it. They deserved that much, after what they had lived through.

A gentle hand touched her elbow and one of the bishops appeared at her side, hazy through her right eye, staff in hand.

"No," she told him gently. "Many people here cannot afford healings for things as trivial as bruises. My face will heal on its own just as well."

He looked at her like she'd gone mad. She turned from him and lifted her voice to the crowd again.

"The war with Plegia is over. Our treaty is being drafted today. Our soldiers are marching home at this moment."

She gave them every detail she was able so they knew how soon to expect their parents and siblings and children, fighting through the splitting headache she'd developed, occasionally pausing to reach for her handkerchief and clean the coat of blood off her tongue. And at the end, the hate was gone from their eyes. They did not look at her with love or trust, no. They were still apprehensive and bitter. She still had much work to do. But the hate was gone.

She hoped she could make it stay gone, but her head hurt and she was not so sure. She may have been the Exalt in name, but her heart knew that she was nothing. A frightened little girl, holding on only because Chrom and Lissa were too young to.

xxx

Dividing Father's belongings was difficult.

Emmeryn spread them all out across Father's—_her_—white coverlet. It was everything his knights had retrieved from that final battle. Falchion, of course, would go to Chrom, her little hero. The blade was hers by right but she could hardly stand to look at it. Lissa might like Father's rings; she loved shiny things even if she hated wearing jewellery. She could set them as ornaments on her dressing table. Did Emmeryn want his gloves? Did she want to encase her hand and remember how massive he always was, think back to when those large hands made her feel safe? She thought not. They would be donated to a soldier too poor for such nice gloves.

She would give her siblings their due in a week or so, she decided. They had cried for the goodnight kiss she had been "too busy" to give them, but she did not want them worrying about her face. She was quite a sight by that evening, with her right eye swelled and the cheek underneath purple. They had enough to think about.

Her fingers brushed the edge of Father's cold shield. Had it always been so simple? If she remembered correctly, his shield had been heavily engraved and set with precious stones, to mimic the Fire Emblem.

"Phila," she called from the doorway. "This is not my father's."

Her guard walked in that easy way of hers through the parlour and into the bedroom. "No, it does not appear to be. But they found it with his body. Perhaps it was his lieutenant's."

"Of course," she murmured. He was a stern and austere man, from what she remembered. His family had served hers for generations. Such a shield could easily be his.

"His son is among our ranks, now. We should return it to him."

Emmeryn nodded. "Send him to me, please."

"At once, Your Grace."

"Oh, not at once. Just whenever is convenient for him."

Phila gave her an amused smile and left. She sighed to herself and went back to sifting through armour. Her dear guard, too, clearly thought her as naïve as the rest of the court did, but Phila at least seemed to like the idea. Emmeryn was lucky to have her. She was already a pillar of strength during this very difficult time: always supportive, always close.

Phila returned and announced her guest so quickly that Emmeryn stiffened. Apparently "convenient" had been "at once" after all. She carried the shield into the parlour, stopping short when she got a good look at the lieutenant's son.

"It's you," she said in surprise. The boy she'd first knighted. He was hardly more than a boy still—seventeen, now, perhaps; she remembered him being extraordinarily young. He was much taller, these years later, and his shoulders had broadened, but he was still rather gangly.

"That's right," said Phila as if remembering, "I suppose I do not need to formally introduce Sir Frederick to you."

But saying his name had been a subtle reminder, Emmeryn knew. She felt her cheeks tinge pink. _Frederick, of course._ She must have prayed his name a thousand times on the night of his vigil. How had she forgotten, after all that? What a terrible Exalt she was shaping up to be.

Her thoughts were broken when he began to kneel, to kiss her hem. The shield tumbled to the carpet as she grasped his shoulders and pulled him back up.

"No, please," she said. "I do not like when people kneel before me. I've already forbidden Phila to."

"Yes, Your Grace," he stammered.

He had a peculiar way of holding himself, like he believed he was an imposition and was trying to disappear. It was so stiff. To make things less formal, she gestured to the ground instead of picking up the shield again and presenting it.

"This is why I've summoned you. This was your father's, was it not?"

"Aye, Your Grace."

"I thank you for his sacrifice, and your family's. He served my father until the very end—so closely that they brought me his shield by mistake. Now it is yours."

His eyes were cool as he scanned its dented, silvery surface and then flickered up to meet hers very briefly.

"Forgive me, Your Grace, but I want nothing of his."

That surprised her. His gaze was fixed to the floor now, but she had seen enough. There was pain, there: not the sharp sort borne of fresh grief, but the bitter sort caused by years of it.

"I understand," she said, meaning every word. "You are dismissed, then."

He bowed, but hesitated as he rose. His eyes met hers again and traveled down the edge of her swollen face, where they lingered.

"If I may be so bold," he said, "perhaps Your Grace should assign someone to clear the square of rocks before you go to speak again."

"Make someone take the time to pick up every single little pebble?" she asked, amused. She had not expected someone so severe to have such a morbid sense of humour.

"I would gladly volunteer," he said. Her smile slipped away.

He'd been completely serious. How odd. How endearingly odd.

"That won't be necessary, Frederick. People need to throw things when they are angry, you see. But anger fades. I must be patient with them."

"Are you quite sure you will not allow me to kiss your hem, Your Grace?"

Another odd remark. She nodded, confused. Frederick took his leave, then, and when he and Phila both turned for the door, the sight of their backs made her realize it.

She had done something right. She wasn't sure what it was, but she'd done it. Now she had two Ylisseans who were completely loyal to her.

She shut her eyes after the door did. _Only hundreds of thousands left to go._

xxx

The next week, it was fruit that struck her face. An apple so rotten that it exploded on impact, spraying her with sweet brown mush.

Emmeryn laughed. Before everyone assembled, she laughed like she had lost her wits.

"Your Grace," Phila murmured, steadying her by the shoulders. "These times are very trying for you; such stress is normal. Let us go back to the castle and rest."

"But Phila, don't you see?" She gleefully wiped a streak of juice from her face. "They're throwing fruit. That means there were no rocks to throw. Not in the whole square."

xxx

In the weeks after, she made sure to keep a close eye on Frederick. The castle's large glass windows offered her splendid views of all the courtyards, barracks, and fields while she walked from meeting to meeting. At first it pleased her to spot him below once in a while, after the kindness he had done to her, but gradually her heart sank as she noticed a pattern.

Frederick, as far as she could tell, had no one. She wasn't sure if he distanced himself from the other knights or if they distanced themselves from him, but the end result was the same. Frederick ate alone, walked alone, and brushed down his horse alone. And when he was alone, he shrank into himself, as if he were afraid of taking up too much space even with no one to share it. With little effort she was able to find out that he had no siblings and his mother had died when he was a child.

His awkwardness slipped away when he fought, though. He was graceful on horseback with an axe and swift on foot with a sword. He seemed confident and whole in his armour. Every opponent she saw him spar against, he knocked flat. And when he was training alone, as he often seemed to, such a passion overcame him that she couldn't help but be proud. Knights of Ylisse would need to be strong to keep the peace that she was bringing.

"Your Grace?"

Phila interrupted her reverie. That morning she was standing before the southern windows, looking down at the town. "Yes, Phila?"

"Have you put any more thought into who you will chose as your Royal Guard? We really can not delay this any longer."

"Yes, of course." Twenty elite knights to keep her safe, as was tradition. Ten of them had died with her father. Mercifully, Phila had not been among them. Emmeryn was to promote new ones, and had in fact given the matter a great deal of consideration.

She listed a few names Phila nodded approvingly at: veterans and able-bodied men and women all. The best and the brightest.

"And Frederick," she said for the tenth.

Phila raised an eyebrow. "Truly, Your Grace? But he's so…young."

"He is talented."

"That he is, but." She paused. "Please reconsider. They say he's overzealous. Aggravating. As a squire, you know, he did nothing but practice until he broke the quintain. That's why they knighted him so early. They had no idea what else to do with him."

"Should dedication not be rewarded?"

"Your Grace, in your kindness, it is probably hard for you to understand. People who are so devoted are also occasionally…unwell. It would be better for you to pick a more adjusted candidate."

But this was something she could do. A difference she could make.

"You do not need Frederick," said Phila.

"No," Emmeryn replied with a smile. "I think he needs me."

* * *

_Author's Note: What no Emmeryn's leadership quirks like hating kneeling aren't based on Saint JPII why would you think that. (But Emmeryn is basically pope, let's not even lie.)_

_The next chapter will be in Lissa's PoV for the first half and Chrom's for the second. _


	4. Curses

_Author's Note: For ages: Like the previous chapters, Lissa is 5 here, and Chrom is 9._

* * *

**Chapter Four: Curses**

Lissa was happy to be up in the tree.

Trees were nice. Trees were fun. The sun was warm on her cheeks and the bark rough under her hands. It had rained for so long, she thought it would never be spring again.

Winter had been yucky and cold. She had lots of ladies in her room every morning who pulled her hair when they brushed it and made her wear all kinds of stupid skirts. Lissa hated skirts. They were hard to run in, and when she tried, the ladies all said that princesses shouldn't run. Princesses were also not allowed to carry frogs in their skirts. Or in their hands.

Lissa was a bad princess.

All winter, Emmeryn was busy and had weird bruises on her face and arms from falling out of bed. The spring came eventually, and Emmeryn was so great that people started to cheer when she went to go see them, and her bruises went away, but Lissa didn't want to forget the thought. Emmeryn was a very good and lovely princess with a big shiny crown, so Lissa found it funny that her big, big sister still did silly things like fall out of bed in the night. Even Lissa didn't fall out of bed anymore.

She also missed Daddy—or, at least, having a Daddy. When he was around, she got to see Emm a lot, but that wasn't an option anymore. On the bright side, she got to spend lots of time with Chrom. They played all kinds of silly games. Today she was a rabbit and he was threatening to catch her and shave all her hair off for a nice pair of gloves.

"Lissa!" he called grumpily from the ground. "Rabbits don't climb trees!"

"Can't catch me!" she called back breezily, ignoring that.

"Come down! You might fall!"

"I won't! I don't even fall out of bed. I'm a big girl! My hand ladies are wrong and I'm very, very big!" Lissa spread her arms, lifted her chin proudly, and began to walk out along a branch.

"Lissa, don't do that!"

"Make me!"

"I'll tell on you!"

"I'll tell on you!" she mimicked in a high voice that made him mad. Ever since Emmeryn gave him Daddy's dumb old sword, he'd decided he was a big, manly man with a deep, manly voice. Lissa knew better, and liked to remind him of it.

"Fine, I'll never play with you again. Watch me!"

"I'll come down if you kiss my hand!" Knights kissed Emm's hand all the time, even when she told them not to. Lissa wished she could be so grown up.

"Never! Don't you know? If you kiss a girl, you get a sickness called cooties and you die."

"Emmy gives us kisses almost every night!"

"I don't let her." He lifted his chin. "I'm the man of the house and I can't take care of you both if I get sick and die."

"That's dumb."

"You're dumb!"

"No, you!" She turned her head to glare down at him and lost her footing.

A swoop in her tummy, wind, blurs of colour, red behind her scrunched eyelids, _crunch_.

xXx

"Lissa, no!"

Chrom couldn't get to her fast enough and she hit the ground hard. He slid to his knees beside her so fast that he scraped them on the twigs in the grass.

"Lissa, Lissa!"

She was clutching her right wrist, which was bent funny, and crying so loud he wanted to cover his ears.

"Are you okay?"

No answer. Only tears.

"Calm down!" he tried to bargain. "We're going to get in trouble!"

"It hurts!"

"I know!" he stammered. "It looks like it! But you're a big girl, right? Isn't that what you said?"

"Chrom, make it stop!" she wailed, and his chest ached so badly he wanted to claw at it.

"I will!" But what could he do? What healed wounds? Staves and magic? Then they'd have to tell Emmeryn, and they'd get in big trouble. Bandages? It would take him too long to find some, and Lissa was suffering. Kisses?

Oh, gods.

"Hold still," he said, trying to keep his voice calm, though it trembled anyway. "I'll kiss it and make it better."

"No!" She winced away as he ducked his head toward her hand. "You'll die!"

"But Lissa!"

"I won't let you!"

"You're my only baby sister!"

She was crying too hard to protest now, so he scrambled to her left side, where she was cradling her wrist, and pecked his lips against it. Impending Death smelled like grass and was pleasantly sunny. He supposed he could go in peace, if he had helped Lissa.

"There," he said. "Better?"

But she was still crying.

"Better?" he repeated anxiously.

She sobbed and hiccoughed and wiggled her legs in pain, and then finally shook her head.

"It didn't work?!"

"Uh-uh!"

"Gods!" All that for nothing! Despite himself, Chrom started to tear up, too. There was such pain in Lissa's voice that he was sure she was going to die, and he had been able to do nothing about it. And now he was dying, too.

"Lissa," a voice called, commanding but oddly calm. Chrom lept to his feet as Emm swept into the garden. "What happened?"

"I fell out of the tree," she bawled as she stuck out her wrist. "Emmy, it hurts!"

"Here, love." She knelt and scooped Lissa into her arms, but she looked over at Chrom.

"I did everything I could!" he insisted. Emmeryn had to believe him; she had to! "I kissed it like the storybooks always say to, and now I'm going to die from cooties, but she still isn't any better! She won't stop crying!"

Before he knew it, he was sobbing too. He'd give his own life up for Lissa, but the sacrifice was useless. And he'd promised when she was born to be good to her. He was the worst older brother ever.

"Oh, Chrom," Emmeryn said with a big smile. She stood gingerly with Lissa but reached down to wipe his tears. "Don't you see? Kisses can't take away pain. The storybooks always leave that out. Pain is forever-it will teach us lessons. But by loving her, you've broken Lissa's curse."

"Curse?" he asked with a hiccup, and even Lissa quieted in confusion.

"That's right," Emmeryn said solemnly. "She was going to die, you know."

"I know. I've never heard anybody cry that hard."

"But with your selfless act, braving the kiss, you broke the curse, so even if you can't take Lissa's pain away, you saved her life."

"Really?" Lissa asked in a soft voice. Emmeryn took her hand from Chrom's face to wipe the youngest's tears. "Thanks, Chrom."

"I'd die for you any old day, Lissa," he said, trying to sound brave and just crying more. Death was scarier the more he thought about it, and it was hard to confront without Emm's hand. She just smiled in that quiet way of hers like she had some big secret.

"You're not going to die, Chrom. An act of True Love will always save you."

"You mean it?" he and Lissa asked at the same time.

"I do. Because you are such good siblings, you will both live. I'm very proud of you."

Chrom scrubbed at his eyes while Emm stood with Lissa in her arms.

"Come, dears. We must get this wrist healed and splinted right away."

"I'll kiss it again, to tide you over!" Chrom insisted, which made Lissa weakly stick her tongue out.

"Maybe I don't want _your _cooties."

But she extended her tiny, oddly-angled hand, so Chrom kept to his word.

* * *

_Author's Note: Chrom and Lissa, Most Annoying Siblings 2k14. _

_I didn't think anybody would be reading/reviewing this fic, so thank you so much to everyone! It's nice to know people have been enjoying it. (If you have critique, I'm super open to that too!) _


	5. Family

_Author's Note: In Which Frederick Gets Adopted, basically._

* * *

**Chapter Five: Family**

"I doubt he will enjoy being made one of your projects, Your Grace," Phila muttered as they went down the corridor. It was nearly time for Emmeryn's first meeting: a briefing on all the restoration projects she had begun. Emphasis on free schooling for young men and women, now that they were not all being drafted as soldiers.

"Project," Emmeryn repeated through her smile. "What a way to phrase it."

"I suppose I will never fully understand you, milady, although I will continue to endeavour to do so."

"Oh, Phila." Emmeryn gave her hand a brief squeeze. "I of course care very much for you, too."

Her lips quirked upward before she nodded her head—the closest Emmeryn would allow to a bow. They had reached the large, oaken double doors that led to the vaulted room she preferred to use for large meetings. Phila, having escorted her here from her rooms, would now leave to perform her other duties. Frederick guarded the hallway, positioned by the closed doorway. Inside the room, five more of her twenty personal guards would be stationed. She could not even go to the privy without being accompanied, and she still had not become accustomed to it.

"Goodbye, Phila. I will see you this evening."

"'Til then, Your Grace."

The captain left. She was quite alone with him. It was time for her plan to begin.

"Frederick," Emmeryn said before she opened the doors.

He looked surprised to be addressed. "Milady?"

"I would like you to know that you are a wonderful man and I love you."

He blushed so fast she suddenly regretted her bluntness, afraid he would faint.

"Your Grace! You hardly know—I have only been in your service for—"

"I have already been made aware of the content of your character."

"Forgive me, Your Grace." He regained control, clenched his hand around the hilt of his sword and attempting a smile. "I am unaccustomed to such teasing."

"I was not teasing. I meant every word."

"That is impossible."

"You do not believe me, then?"

"With all due respect, you should save your kind words for knights more worthy of them."

"I simply knew you would react this way. Never fear, Sir Frederick. I will say it until you believe me."

"That is not at all necessary."

But then the doors were open, the guards within alerted by the sound of her voice, so she entered the meeting room and ignored him entirely.

xxx

Emmeryn's twenty guards always took turns standing outside her bedchamber at night, in the event that an assassin could somehow breach the castle walls—an event that was looking less and less likely with every passing day, with how quickly she won the people over. Frederick still decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

It was his first night at this particular post. While he preferred an axe, Phila had advised him to bring his lance instead, so that he would have something to lean on until his replacement came for him in the middle of the night.

"I will heed your advice, but I will not grow weary," he assured her, his mouth a firm line.

"Goodwill is quite lost on you, isn't it, Frederick." But she smiled as if he had said something impressive, so he did not take offense. It was the first time he'd seen Phila smile at anyone besides Exalt Emmeryn or one of the pegasus knights in her wing.

He arrived for duty at her door at the same time the two women appeared, the former neat and alert as ever and Emmeryn looking a little drowsy. It must have been a long day. The two exchanged a fond goodbye.

"Goodnight to you too, Frederick," said Emmeryn after Phila had left, one hand on the doorknob.

"Not quite yet, Your Grace."

He put a hand out to keep her back and entered the room before her. First order of business: behind the door. Clear. He walked to the first window and moved aside the curtains. Clear. Knelt to look under the bed. Clear. As he stood, he turned the bedsheets down while he was at it.

For a moment he wondered why a handmaid had not already done that, until he remembered the word spreading around the castle that Emmeryn had dismissed all her handmaids, insisting that she did not need nor want anyone waiting on her.

The slippers she had worn that morning in the chapel to praise Naga were just outside her wardrobe. He frowned and opened the doors to set them neatly inside, peeking behind her clothes while he was at it. Clear. Then he went to her writing desk and looked into the gap where her seat slid into it. Clear. There was a smudge of lead on the wooden surface from where she had been drafting some paper or other. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it clean. Then he moved to the next window and checked its curtains, as he had with the first.

"Frederick?"

"Milady?"

"What are you doing?"

She sounded baffled. He looked over at her, just as confused.

"Checking your room for assassins. Do all of your knights not do this before their nightly watch?"

"Of course not. Someone guards the door all day. How could an assassin possibly get in?"

"By scaling the balcony, of course. Most royal families live in the centre of their castles; for some reason yours has always been adamant upon being able to see the people, despite the hazards."

She bit down hard on her lower lip. He realized she was trying not to smile.

"This is no laughing matter, Your Grace. But your rooms seem to be quite safe, for the time being. 'Tis time for bed."

He crossed behind her, pulled her phelonion up and over her head, and had taken his first step back to her wardrobe to hang it up before he felt her stare.

"You undressed me," she said—not accusing, but as if repeating something new that she had just learned. He blinked and took her in: thin white shift, bare shoulders. When all the implications hit, his face began to burn with a vengeance and he dropped the garment like it might bite him.

"Oh, Your Grace! Please forgive me! I wasn't thinking."

This time she didn't hold back her smile. "No, you weren't, were you."

"I just wanted to be helpful." His cheeks hurt already from blushing. "I swear I will never again be so careless."

"Sir Frederick."

"Forgive me, please. I had no ill intentions. I would never—"

"Frederick. I know."

His thoughts had been sprinting, all of them in one long chaotic race, and at her words, the one in front tripped and the rest fell over it.

"You what?"

"I know you wouldn't. It's very nice, actually, that you could do something like undress me with nary a thought that might make me uncomfortable. You may continue."

Her smile was so gentle that he had no choice but to return it. He hung her phelonion so it wouldn't wrinkle and then returned to take her mantle and gloves off for her.

"I hope we shall be good friends," she said.

"I am but your humble servant."

But he was honoured nonetheless. And so delighted that he could not possibly grow drowsy at his post. When his replacement came, true to the promise he had given Phila, Frederick was as alert as ever. Alert and smiling. No one had ever asked to be his friend, before.

xxx

Every morning, Emmeryn made her point of praising Frederick, and every morning he sputtered and stiffened and denied all of it. After a month, she began to think that perhaps this was not all as easy as simply saying nice words. But words were all she had, at the moment, and she was determined to make him stop standing like he wished to disappear.

Chrom and Lissa could get him to do it, somehow. They had taken a liking to him right away, after he had promised to have a wooden sword fight with Chrom and a tea party with Lissa, and kept to his word on both counts. (And when Lissa refused to wear the frilly pink sun hat made just for the occasion, insisting it was too pink and frilly, Frederick put it on instead and Chrom laughed himself breathless.) But when he was alone with Emmeryn, he shrank, and she wondered at it. Perhaps she would have to take things one step at a time.

"Frederick," she said the next morning.

"Your Grace?" He eyed her.

"You are a wonderful man."

A hesitation, but finally an acceptance: "Thank you, Your Grace. I strive to make it so."

"And I love you."

"You mustn't say such things," he said, ducking his head. "You don't—I'm not—"

"And I love you, Frederick." She brushed gently past him and into the room.

xxx

As soon as Chrom was done with his lessons for the day, he hurried down to the barracks on the first floor.

"Frederick!" he called at the open door. Several soldiers were sitting in their common room, talking or playing cards. The one Chrom was looking for sat alone in the corner, polishing a very large axe. He glanced up immediately.

"Sire?"

"Are you on duty?"

"Not for the rest of the afternoon, milord."

"Oh, good! Do you want to go fight with wooden swords again?"

"Of course. Just a moment." Frederick was up and gone in an instant, presumably to put away the axe, for he returned empty-handed and with his sleeves rolled crisply up. Chrom was quick to lead him off down the hallway, waving at Phila as she entered the barracks with one amused eyebrow raised.

"I'm really glad you have fun with this, too, Frederick," he said. "After all, you can use a real sword already, so you don't need to pretend. And you're too old to play."

That made him smile. "Really, now. How old do you think I am?"

"At least thirty," Chrom teased.

"Alas! Only eighteen. Two years older than your sister."

"She acts thirty, too."

"That she does."

"You love her, don't you?"

Frederick stopped dead in his tracks. Chrom did too, squinting a little to look back at the knight, since the light was coming through the windows very brightly.

"All knights must love their Exalt, sire," Frederick said.

Chrom whistled. "I guess so. I know you kiss her hand all the time, but you haven't died from kissing a girl yet. And she told me a while ago that True Love can save you from all kinds of curses."

"That...isn't quite how it works."

"But that's what she said! I love her so much that I'm completely invincible. So all you knights feel the same way, then?"

"Yes," Frederick said, relaxing a little. "We all hope to be her dearest friends."

"Friends like me and you! We could save each other from all kinds of evil spells, huh?"

"Me and you?" he repeated, before dropping to a knee and taking Chrom's hand. "Milord, I am so honoured. I will be the dearest friend you've ever had. No evil spell shall ever find you."

"Stop!" he ordered with a smile. Frederick was a lot like Emm—they both kept such straight faces that it was hard to tell when they were being serious and when they were being sarcastic.

"Ah, but I mean it," Frederick said as he rose. "I swear myself anew to you in friendship, sire."

"All right! And I swear back. We don't have to kiss, though, do we?"

Frederick snorted and Chrom looked up at him in surprise. He'd never heard the knight laugh before. It made him laugh, a little, too.

xxx

Emmeryn heard often that she always looked at peace. Unshakable and calm. She rarely felt that way, but she supposed it was nice to be able to put on the facade, for the sake of others. The past few weeks, however, made her genuinely happy. Lissa and Chrom had adjusted to all her new duties, and got along splendidly in her absence. Chrom and Frederick were thick as thieves, constantly playing at fighting until that grew naturally into actual sparring lessons. It disconcerted her a little to watch Chrom take so easily and eagerly to the art of war, but she trusted Frederick to help him use Falchion for the good of the people.

It would be the first time in a long time that sword would be wielded by hands with good intentions. She prayed for her little brother every morning—and for her little sister, who scowled at the boys' sparring like she too knew what it would bring one day, and detested it. As soon as she was old enough, Emmeryn wanted to teach Lissa to heal. She had the perfect spirit for it.

"Your Grace."

Her thoughts were broken as she reached the end of the hall. Her meetings would begin behind the large doors before her, as always. Phila left with a sharp nod, as always. Frederick stood guard, as always. And, as always:

"Good morning, Frederick. You are a wonderful man and I love you."

"Thank you, Your Grace."

There. He'd accepted the compliment stoically, without blushing or protesting.

"That's not right," she told him, and ignored the surprised slant to his eyebrows as she walked by yet again.

It didn't mean anything if he let it pour off him like rain. She had to teach him to absorb it.

xxx

Unladylike. Lissa heard that word a zillion times a day. It annoyed her a lot. So what if she liked frogs and mud puddles and running barefoot? She was still a princess. She still had lady parts. But no matter how much she tried to sit still or keep the hem of her skirt clean, nothing was good enough for her handmaidens. She was unladylike.

For a little while, this made her want to spend more time with Chrom and Frederick and all the other men. They were also unladylike, since they weren't ladies at all. She tried to play pranks on people but no one played them back, and only excused her with a polite, "Milady." She tried to join in one of Chrom's spars but couldn't lift his heavy practice sword, and then he scolded her out of the ring, insisting she could get hurt.

"Here," an exasperated handmaiden said one day, plucking Lissa out of the chicken coop, where she'd been hiding, and carrying her to the garden. "Play with flowers. There's nothing messy about flowers."

Lissa thought this was a good idea. She liked flowers a lot. Was that ladylike? Maybe, since a lady had sat her in the middle of a bunch of them. She sang to herself and picked as many as she could, enjoying their pretty colours and the smell of grass and dirt. Once she had enough, she decided to weave a flower crown for Emmeryn. And once that turned out pretty well, she decided to make them for her entire guard. All they did was guard all day, and it looked so boring!

The handmaidens stared at her, maybe confused, but they didn't stop Lissa as she skipped into the castle with twenty-one raggedy flower crowns looped over her arms. They only trailed behind her. Emm was in a meeting so Lissa handed two out to the men standing guard at the big closed doors. They took them from her but just held them instead of putting them on.

"They're crowns," Lissa informed them. One cleared his throat.

"Of course, milady. But only your sister may wear such a, er, fine crown."

"But I made it for you!"

"We are here to look frightening, Princess. Flower crowns are for little maidens such as yourself."

Crestfallen, Lissa went to go look for other knights, but they all rejected her gifts in the same way. Even the women. It was a breach of dress code. It would look like they were not taking their posts seriously. Flowers were for proper ladies, milady. By the end of the afternoon, Lissa was even more confused than ever. She was so unladylike, but now she was also too much of a lady?

By now she only had two crowns left, and was very upset about Emmeryn's. She had made it out of dandelions, to match their hair, but the dandelions were dying the fastest of all the flowers, and Emm's crown was already browned and withered. It would be ruined by the time she got out of her meeting. The other one, made of daisies, was only slightly better. Still, she'd spent so much time making them that when she finally came across the last knight, Frederick, in the corridor, she handed it up to him.

"For me?" he asked.

"Yeah. I made them for everybody. It's a crown. Are you going to wear it?"

"Ah, well, milady..." He turned it over gently in his hands and then gave it back. "I am about to go on duty, for the evening watch, and..."

And Lissa was a dumb little girl who couldn't fit in anywhere or do anything right. Twenty times out of twenty.

"Okay," she said, eyes filling, lips wobbling. "I get it. I'll just go look for Emmy again. She can have them both, if she wants them."

She didn't want Frederick to see her cry. From the way his eyebrows slanted, it was too late. She tried to run away, but he called after her,

"M-Milady! Was that crown, perchance, made of daisies?"

"Yeah." The tears were in her voice now as she turned back. "Why?"

"How silly of me. I only did not want to wear it because I feared it did not match the rest of my outfit. But daisies are white, and white goes well with everything! That was a clever choice on your part."

"Clever?" she repeated in shock. He was walking toward her now, taking the crown out of her hands, putting it right on his head.

"Perhaps periwinkles would be even better, next time," he said. "They would bring out the blue in my armour."

"Next time?" Her tears escaped, but only because she had squinted her eyes up in a big smile. "Okay! I'll make you a flower crown every day!"

He returned the smile, although there was something grimace-like about it. "What a lucky man I am."

"Come on!" Lissa took his hands and began to drag him out to the garden. "Point out all the flowers that will match! I want to know! And we can make Emmeryn a much better crown than this!"

She tossed the wilted dandelions to the floor behind them. A handmaiden sighed "unladylike" and picked it up. Lissa didn't care. Lissa was going back out to play with her new best friend.

xxx

Over half a year as Exalt, now. Emmeryn had hardly believed it would happen, but she was finally settling into a rhythm. Growing confident. People cheered for her now, with light and openness in their eyes. She hoped to do them all proud, lead them all well.

Chrom had turned ten. He would reach manhood a little earlier than most boys, the clerics said. Emmeryn had already heard his voice crack—just once, and not very deeply, so she pretended it was a fluke and tucked him into bed with extra firmness. He let her kiss his forehead but he scowled about it. Lissa had turned six. She, at least, was still very much a child. Emmeryn wanted to sit with her and start explaining staves, but every time she tried, something important demanded her attention. Lissa never shed a tear, but the way she looked up at her each time she was left...

"You are frowning this morning, Your Grace," Frederick told her as she reached the door. "'Tis a rare sight."

"I was just thinking," she said. She would have to find time. She would have to do better, for Lissa and for all of them. Her morning would start with this one right here, and perhaps after supper she would find a way to play with her siblings. "Frederick—"

He dropped his eyes as he always did, but this time he smiled. It cut her off.

"I am a wonderful man and you love me," he said. Quietly, but without the lift of a question at the end. For the first time in weeks, Emmeryn's smile parted her lips.

"Yes," she said, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Perfect."

* * *

_Author's Note: I've had a couple readers now ask for more Frederick, so luckily this chapter was already in the works XP. The next chapter is all Lissa's PoV. Feedback is always appreciated, if you have any!_


	6. Nightmares

**Chapter Six: Nightmares**

Lissa's own screaming woke her up.

Monsters, swords, something about Father. She'd been running like a thousand hands were holding her back, looking for Chrom and Emmeryn, but they weren't anywhere. Nobody was anywhere except the monsters.

"Milady?" someone said. Her screaming had woken somebody else, up, too. "It was only a dream."

"What?" she wobbled back. The voice sounded familiar. A handmaid? Yes, the one on the pallet on the floor. Lissa was in her bed, even though she was breathing hard like she really had been running. Her sheets were all tangled. Her hair was wet. She started to cry.

"I don't feel good. I want Emmy."

"It was only a dream," the maid said again. Her voice was the soothing one she used before bedtime, but it didn't calm Lissa down any better now than it did then. She jumped out of bed and sprinted for the door. A hand grasped at her nightgown and missed.

"Milady!" the maid called from behind her. She ran even faster, whimpering with every breath, heart in her throat. "Not at this hour of the night! The Exalt needs her sleep!"

Don't call her that! Lissa wanted to yell back, but her voice was still mostly stuck. It was too easy to imagine the maid as another monster chasing her. The corridors had looked the same in her dream, big and dark and cold. She threw herself around the corner, charged past more doors and guttering torches.

"Princess Lissa!" Now the voice was sharp.

There! One of the royal guards! Lissa skidded to a stop before her and Emmeryn's big heavy doorway, tears still falling. The woman crouched to look into her face.

"Milady, what is it?"

"I want Emmy," she pleaded. "I had a nightmare. Please let me see her."

"_Princess Lissa_." The maid swooped down onto them all too quickly. "It was a dream. None of it was real. This is no reason to go bothering the Exalt in the middle of the night!"

"But she makes me feel better!"

"How can you be so selfish?"

The knight stood, mouth opening, but she didn't say anything. Lissa wasn't sure what to say either. She did feel selfish. Awful. Like she might be sick. But she was still so scared.

The door creaked open. The maid gasped and the knight tightened her grip on her spear and Lissa rushed through the dark crack and clung to the warm legs she met behind it.

"What all is the matter?" Emmeryn asked sleepily. A hand came down and patted Lissa on the head. "My, you're soaked. Have you been running races?"

"It was a mere bad dream, Your Grace," the maid said stiffly. "Please do not concern yourself."

"You should be in bed," the knight agreed, if more slowly. "Sir Frederick told me you were up for his entire watch last night, praying for the new Sir…gods. I've forgotten his name."

"Kell—" Emmeryn began, but faltered. "Kelley? Kjelle? No, that's a girl's name…"

"As you can see, the lack of sleep is wearing on Your Grace."

"I will take the princess back right away," said the maid. She held out her hands. "Come here, milady."

"No!" Lissa clenched her fists in Emmeryn's nightgown. She was so close. She had her sister in her hands. No way in That Bad Word She Wasn't Allowed To Say would they pry her away now.

"She can stay with me," said Emm, so naturally that even though Lissa knew she'd say it, she still gawked up in surprise. "We'll go back to sleep together."

"Really, milady," the maid began, but Emmeryn gave both women out in the hall a cheerful "Good night!" and shut the door right in their faces.

Lissa's tears had stopped in the hubbub, but as soon as they were alone and Emm picked her up, they started again. She sobbed.

"It's all over, Lissa," she murmured. "You're all right."

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I missed you."

"Oh." Emmeryn suddenly sounded a little watery, too. She kissed the top of Lissa's head several times before moving them both to the washroom. Lissa tried to calm down before she woke up Emm's handmaid, until she remembered Emm was grown-up enough to send hers away. For the millionth time, she wished she had the same magic powers. That she could just wake up brave and strong and beautiful, and her hair would grow in gentle curls instead of its weird, straw-like swoops, and she would be ladylike and loved instead of a nuisance.

Emmeryn set her down, washed her face with a cold cloth, got her out of her damp nightgown, and put her in one of her own. Lissa giggled and flapped her arms like a bird, since the sleeves went past her fingers and touched the floor. She tried to grab the hem through them so she didn't trip and followed Emm into bed.

"Maybe we should have more sleepovers," Emm said. "This is nice, isn't it?"

Lissa snuggled against her. She felt warm and very safe. Not at all like she felt alone, or even with Chrom. Chrom loved her, but he didn't always like her (and she sure felt the same way). Emmeryn did.

"My hand ladies might not let me come back, though," she realized aloud. "They said you're the Exalt and I can't bother you."

"You are my little sister and you are not a bother. The Exalt said so. They can't say no to that, can they?"

"I guess not." Lissa grinned. "I wish I could make them go away like you did. They're all so grumpy."

"They just worry for you, with Mother and Father gone and me so busy. Sometimes people get very stern when they worry."

"About what?" she asked. "I'm just fine!"

"You have been crying a lot lately," Emm pointed out. Lissa felt her shoulders hunch up. "Just now, out in the hallway, and when you brought me all those flower crowns, there were salt tracks on your cheeks. How can we not worry?"

"I guess I am kind of being a baby." She started to pout but realized it and sucked her lip back in. "I don't want to worry anybody. I'll be…"

There it was. What she needed to do. Maybe it was less of a magical transformation and more of something long and messy, like the soaked butterfly she saw dragging itself out of its casing last week.

"More grown-up," she finished, though she wondered if she could do it.

Emm gave a sleepy hum. "You'll do splendidly."

Lissa was pretty sure she managed to say "I love you" before she fell asleep, but not entirely sure. She was so tired and felt so much better.

When she woke up in the morning, Emmeryn was already gone. But the covers had been tucked back around her very snugly, so she rolled over in her new cocoon and slept in a little late. Her hand ladies could deal with it. The Exalt had said so.

* * *

_Author's Note: "I love gen. Gen-y gen gen." (But gosh, I need more sister moments. Lissa's in-game reflections on Emmeryn do so much for her character.)_


	7. Shadows

_Author's Note: Sorry for how long it took to write this chapter! It ended a lot differently than I thought it would._

_In Which dads are discussed. It's a delicate topic for everyone. (Warning for mentioned physical/emotional abuse.)_

* * *

**Chapter Seven: Shadows**

Frederick was not accustomed to anyone working on the ides of this particular month. The Exalt's birthday had always been a holiday.

But morning found him standing outside the briefing room and awaiting Emmeryn's arrival, as always, lance poised to skewer the ceiling, and he could not say he regretted the change.

She looked the same, that morning. Pale, tired, but utterly at peace. Her hair was neat and her hands steady. It was Phila that looked haggard, which was what made him nervous.

"Good morning, Frederick," Emmeryn said. She had finally stopped adding that she loved him, now that he finally believed it, but she always said his name, as if to reassure him each day that she wanted to be familiar with him. He wasn't sure how she did it, making one single word feel like a caress. He had no such talent, and ignored her pleasantry.

"How fare you this morning, Your Grace."

It was hardly even a question. Her smile sweetened but sharpened, like toffee.

"You would ask. I am fine, thank you."

She entered the meeting room. The door shut behind her. Frederick studied Phila's downcast eyes. She'd celebrated this day several more times than he had.

"You were up late, Captain," he accused.

"Aye."

It wasn't difficult to assume what had happened. Phila rigidly set on the edge of the bed with the Exalt's face buried in her shoulder, grieving as she couldn't during the day. Frederick felt a tug that was almost nasty.

"I did not realize someone so small could shed so many tears," she said. It was an oddly personal admission from the woman he'd come to see as so stoic.

"I wish," he said, but had no words to finish what he'd started.

"Me too." Phila took her leave.

xxx

Emmeryn had told him that he was free to enter her rooms at any time, especially with how absentmindedly he'd disrobed her the first day of his guard duty, but he was always too afraid that such a gesture would be untoward regardless. Perhaps they each craved friendship, but the truth was that she was the Exalt and he was a mere citizen of Ylisse. Her name would be written in history books someday, and his would be put only on a gravestone marker and would wear away in a few decades. He had no right to be so familiar with her.

That afternoon he was bold. He knocked gently on her door but opened it before she could tell him to. She was sitting at her dressing table, staring at her face. Any other woman might have looked vain doing so. Not Emmeryn. Her eyes flicked to him in the glass as he entered.

"I think," he said, "that Your Grace should retire early tonight. Captain Phila and I can prolong this evening's business on your behalf. And I shall bring you tea. It is the powdered green that you drink most often, is it not?"

"Sometimes you are ridiculous, do you know that?" She said it like it was endearing, but he bristled nonetheless. "Today is a day like any other. I would do well to remember that. You mustn't pamper me."

"But you are the Exalt, and—"

Just the motion of her standing cut him off. What about her slim back made him feel like she could overpower him? How was there such presence in someone with such narrow shoulders?

"You mustn't," she said in a low voice, "treat me specially because I am the Exalt. He received all sorts of special treatment, and I wonder if eventually he began to believe that he deserved it. I wonder if he began to tell himself that his blood was indeed divine, rather than that of any other man. I wonder if that helped to drive him mad."

"My lady—"

"No," she pleaded.

"Emmeryn, then." He ploughed on as she finally turned to face him. "Please know I do not offer because you are royalty. You have shown me great kindness. I wish to begin repaying it."

"Kindness is not a debt."

No one had warned him that she could be so stubborn. It was quite apparent in Chrom and Lissa, but Emmeryn certainly had a wide streak of her own. But then, Frederick had never been particularly malleable either. He began to ungird his sword—a sign that he planned to stay a while, as it would not be polite to wear it in friendly company. She watched as he leaned it by the windowsill.

"I have had almost an entire year to mourn," she said. "To sort out these feelings. There is no excuse for me to be so lost today."

"There are still days when I tell myself the same thing."

"Oh." Her hands flew to her mouth. "Frederick—"

"The powdered green?" he repeated.

Her hands lowered and clenched crisply in the folds of her phelonion. "Yes. Thank you. Bring two cups."

xxx

"Why is everyone being so weird today?" Lissa asked.

Chrom glanced over at her, even though he had to crane his neck a little. He was sitting on the lip of one of the garden fountains, legs stretched out before him, her tiny boots discarded even farther away. She sat facing the opposite direction with her bare feet in the water.

"Your handmaids are going to scold you when they see you've gotten all wet," he said to avoid answering.

"Come on, Chrom."

He gripped the stone lip, which pushed his shoulders up to his ears. "It's Father's birthday today. Or, at least, it would have been."

"So everyone's sad? I don't get it. They cried at his funeral already. It's been a whole year almost."

"You think so?" It was hard for him to believe that Lissa had already gotten over it. But then, she was so young, and she'd hardly known him. The campaign had kept him away for most of her life, and on any return visits to the castle, he didn't pay her any attention. She probably couldn't even remember how much she'd cried about it.

They were silent for a while, save for Lissa occasionally kicking at the water. Chrom drummed his heels into the ground too. Everything felt complicated, like a big knot underneath his ribcage. Was he supposed to be crying? Or letting it go, like Lissa? Was it bad that he couldn't do either?

"What was he like?" she asked suddenly. Birds cheeped. The fountain burbled.

Chrom wanted to tell her about all his memories. Warm fingers on the top of his head, long stories of brave heroes and glorious feats before bed, sitting on a strong knee while courtiers around the throne said big words he didn't understand, treats wrapped in wax paper whenever Father returned from days out in town—separate ones for him and Emmeryn, because their favourite flavours were different, and Father always remembered. He wanted to tell her how his fingers brushed Mother's arm sometime, or even her belly when she was carrying Lissa. There was so much to say about the silly songs he would sing, the ones that made even Emmeryn laugh, because they sounded so funny coming out of an Exalt's mouth. There was how safe he felt being tucked in at night, knowing Father would do anything to protect him.

He opened his mouth but the memories clogged in his throat.

Was it even all right to say good things about someone who had done so much evil? Didn't none of that matter, in the long run, after so many people had suffered?

Maybe it wasn't fair to erase any nice things he'd done, to only paint him in black, to make him a monster instead of a man. But Chrom didn't think it was fair to Ylisse, either, to forget the war for even a moment. Emmeryn had taken him out into the poorer parts of the capital, pointed out the skinny children and the begging women and the young soldiers fighting to walk without a leg or count change without a hand.

"Chrom?" Lissa asked. He shut his mouth and opened it again.

"I don't know. I just don't know. He was a stranger to me."

She made a rude noise, and he understood. At least he was old enough to have memories of his face, his touch, his voice. At least he knew _something_. But what Lissa couldn't fathom was that knowing more only made him know less. He felt like maybe she was better off remembering nothing at all. Things were simpler that way. And when people looked at Lissa or even Emmeryn, with their blonde curls and and light eyes, they weren't reminded of anybody else. He stood, suddenly feeling itchy.

"Chrom?" she asked again.

"I have to practice."

"Is this another of those stupid boy things? You hit stuff until you feel better?"

"That's not how it works," he said before he stomped away. "I hit stuff until I _am_ better."

At aiming. At striking. At being his own man. At evening Falchion's tally, racking up hundreds of harmless and defensive blows against the hundreds of kills. At stepping out of that dark, dark shadow.

xxx

"I worry for Chrom," Emmeryn said when Frederick returned with tea.

_I do, too,_ he wanted to say. But instead he just set the tray down on her dressing table and pulled her phelonion off and went to hang it in her wardrobe.

"I know your family has been knights for generations," she quipped as she poured them each a cup, "but I think you have missed your true calling as a nursemaid."

"If milady can not take care of herself, someone must do it for her."

"I can do it." She joined him in the wardrobe doorway with her shoes and placed them inside. "Look."

"Very good, Your Grace."

The afternoon found them at the tea table in her receiving chamber, her elegantly poised in the center of her chair's cushion and him stiffly perched on the edge of his. It had taken some coaxing and the memory of his earlier conversation with Phila to keep him from leaving to attend to some duty or other.

"This is why you need to stop treating me like someone so _holy_," she said as she poured their second cups. "I can be so selfish sometimes. This whole day I'd been wallowing in my own feelings, and I completely forgot about you. When was your father's birthday? Did you feel as shaky then as I did this morning?"

In truth, it had been difficult to mourn him. He had been sad, yes. Overwhelmingly so, and frustrated with himself because he knew there was no reason for it. But he shook his head and forced himself to sip his tea.

"You must not concern yourself with it, Your Grace."

"But the relationship you had with him. I am making a guess, for you've never told me outright, but...I believe it was similar to what I had with my father. Wasn't it?"

"You have my...empathy," he answered carefully, but she continued,

"Perhaps it was even worse. Father raised his hand to me sometimes, when I angered him, but it was only a threat. He never followed through with the strike. Yours did, didn't he."

Frederick opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again intending to lie, and found that he couldn't.

"On occasion," he admitted. She put down her cup. The sympathy in her eyes was so intense that he felt compelled to add, "It was never bad. I knew a squire who would show up at the ring with bruises, so in comparison—"

"Frederick. How could you even—?"

"Do not look at me like that. I always deserved it."

"_Frederick_."

He had never heard that tone of voice pass through her pale lips. It was like steel.

"How did you know?" he ventured quietly, a little afraid of the answer.

"The way you stand without your armour on. Look at you even now. Why won't you sit back in your chair?"

He blinked at the table, startled, and began to lean back, but couldn't manage it. "It isn't good for my posture."

"Why should I care what your posture looks like? We are friends having tea."

Because perhaps if he didn't do everything just so, she wouldn't want to be his friend anymore. She would be cold to him. Make him run laps. Worse. He managed to meet her eyes and found the saddest thing of all: that she understood. Her question had been rhetorical. There was a reason she, too, sat so daintily, although she made it look easy.

"You should try standing with your hands behind your back," she said gently. "It will open up your chest and make you stand taller. It is all right to take up the extra space. You should be proud of who you are."

"Naga's name, Emmeryn."

"I like when you call me that instead of Your Grace."

"Emmeryn."

"Yes?"

"This is why people call you holy."

Her eyes hit the table surface hard and her hands found each other. "Please, don't. You have no idea."

"If you take one mere day to consider your own feelings above everyone else's, it doesn't mean—"

"I was relieved," she said in a rush. She even blurted gracefully, the words slipping out in a soft, hurried stream of air. "When they brought me the news of his death. What I felt was relief."

Slowly, afraid that she would stop if he made a sound, Frederick set his teacup down as well.

"It wasn't joy, of course not. He was my father. For all the problems we had, I know that he loved me, in his own way. He had moments of great kindness. He was the one, in fact, who always told me it was not a debt. And you should have seen him with Chrom. No matter how much trouble he caused, as young boys can do, Father was always patient with him. So many people call him evil, truly evil, but if they could have seen him with Chrom..." She sighed, though her face remained as impassive as always. "But the war could have ended years ago if he had only let it. Now thousands of families could be whole again, I thought, once the soldiers all return. Now people can stop suffering. Now I will no longer have to worry about the tone of voice I use or how loudly I walk or how much I look like my mother. And...I thought of Lissa." She was spinning her teacup in its saucer now, hardly moving the liquid, and he watched the porcelain move between her long fingers. "He wouldn't even knowledge her existence, because she didn't have the brand."

"So it's true." He'd heard the rumours, but had put no stock into them. Perhaps her hair was curlier and her eyes were a different colour, but Lissa's ears were undoubtedly the same as her sister's. He'd had to re-brush her impossibly tangle-prone hair before her handmaids found it too many times not to notice.

"Yes, it's true. I cannot say whether my mother was unfaithful, although I doubt she would do such a thing, no matter how often Father was gone or what atrocities he committed while he was away. He was furious when we could not find it on Lissa. And if he would raise his hand to me, his true-born daughter...perhaps for Lissa it would not be a mere threat. When they brought me Falchion and your father's shield, one of my first thoughts was that she was safe from him. I only mourned and considered the throne afterward." She swallowed hard. "I thought that I was a loving and obedient daughter, but I have been tried by fire. I only remember the bad things about people, and I hate them for things they have never done. I am untrusting. Ungrateful. Cold. Unfit to be part of a family."

"Your Grace," Frederick said in the same sharp tone she had given to him. Her reply was a weak smile.

He knew all her thoughts deeply, intimately, without her having to speak a word. She wanted to hate the Exalt but couldn't, wanted to love him but couldn't, and because of it couldn't manage to even hate or love herself, whichever she believed she deserved. She had no catharsis for his death and would never receive it. And it hurt. Ached like bruised bone, lingering months after the bruises on the skin had gone.

"I assure you," he murmured, "I completely understand. No one understands better than I."

She smiled again. Still weak and sad, but there was something conspiratorial to it now. Something genuine.

They picked up their cups again. The topic was changed to the new curtains being hung in the ballroom. Eventually Frederick stood and excused himself. Silently, they had come to the mutual agreement that she needed to sleep and he needed to train.

xxx

To his surprise, Chrom was already there in the ring. Trying to heft that ancient sword though it was nearly his height, weakly hacking at a wooden target. He saw himself in every bead of sweat, the pull of every muscle. Maybe this would be the strike that was better than his father could do it. Maybe this was the time he could make him proud. Maybe this time he could at least be proud of himself. Maybe this time.

He was still trying, even after the man was long dead.

"This is not the sword you should be using, sire," he said. Chrom stopped and looked over at him, breathing too hard to appear appropriately guilty.

"I know it's...too big still, but...maybe if I start early..."

"Your grip has slipped." Frederick crossed the ring and let his hand hover over Chrom's knuckles, waiting for permission to touch the sacred blade. When Chrom nodded he re-positioned his hands for him, lifted his right elbow, lightly kicked his ankle to make him think about the balance of his stance. "There."

"Frederick, I know I'm still not ready yet, but...I felt like I just had to try. I felt—"

"I know, sire. I promise."

The weight was finally too much for his small arms. Chrom lowered them.

"Hey Frederick," he said. "What can you tell me about him?"

"That he was complicated."

"I already know that."

"I think," he ventured, "that he would not want you fretting like this. I think he would want you at peace, today, milord."

Chrom was silent. He stared at the sword's point.

"If nothing else, it's what I want for you," said Frederick.

Chrom considered it. Smiled slightly. Jammed Falchion into the dirt.

"Okay. Let's go see what everyone in the barracks are up to," he said, and ran off, leaving Frederick gaping.

"Sire! Wait! You can't leave _the_ Falchion here like this! _Sire!_"

xxx

Emmeryn watched the blade sink into the ground from stories above, brand pressed against the glass, and breathed a sigh of relief.

xxx

"Unladylike!" Lissa's handmaiden scolded as she tied her boots back on. The princess just put her hands on her hips.

"I want to play with Emmeryn."

"The Exalt has taken the rest of the day off, milady. She must relax."

"Exactly," said Lissa.

xxx

Evening found Lissa and Emmeryn on the Exalt's bed, the former with her chin dreamily in her hands and the latter weaving colourful memories of their mother.

It found Chrom and Frederick in the barracks, sitting around a table with cider and listening to one of the knights tell a fantastical story about Marth, the Hero-King. One of the men raised Chrom's hand for him when Marth saved the day from the evil dragon, and all the soldiers cheered.

* * *

_Author's Note: __Especially with these bigger chapters where I can easily bleed into terrible writing (if I'm not always there already), feedback is always appreciated (especially stylistic critique, but anything is great!)._

_Thank you so much to everyone reading for your interest! The next chapter is all Fred's PoV._


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